ACS Catalysis Response to Reviewers: How to Write a Rebuttal That Wins (2026)

ACS Catalysis is the American Chemical Society's dedicated catalysis flagship, and its editorial culture is unusual in three ways that change how you write a rebuttal.

1. It is a mechanism venue, not a performance venue

The author guidelines ask for new insight into how a reaction proceeds, with intermediate species characterized by multiple spectroscopic methods or adequately supported by theoretical calculations. So a reviewer is rarely asking whether your catalyst is faster; they are asking whether you can show why it is faster.

A rebuttal that argues "our turnover frequency beats the literature" answers a question these reviewers are not really asking. The winning rebuttal demonstrates the mechanism with direct evidence and rules out alternative explanations with control experiments.

2. Controls and full characterization carry real weight

The guidelines state that catalysts should be characterized by turnover frequencies and fundamental kinetic parameters, and reviewers routinely ask for in-situ or operando spectroscopy, isotope labeling, kinetic isotope effects, and controls that eliminate alternative pathways for the observed activity.

The non-negotiable characterization set depends on the chemistry:

• Heterogeneous catalysis: BET surface area, XRD, and electron microscopy.

• Homogeneous catalysis and biocatalysis: full structural and purity data on the active species.

The most common major-revision request names the additional control experiments, mechanistic probes, or kinetic studies required before the catalysis claim is defensible.

3. The review structure is fast and reviewer-returned

ACS Catalysis reports 5.4 days to first editorial decision and 28.6 days to first peer review decision, and editorial pre-screening can reject a submission for thin novelty before peer review begins. When a paper survives to revision, the revised manuscript may go back to the original reviewers, the people who asked for the new data in the first place.

That combination, mechanism-first plus characterization-heavy plus reviewer-returned, means a thin ACS Catalysis response does not just risk a sharper reviewer note. It can convert a major revision into a rejection on the next round.

The standard ACS Catalysis rebuttal follows a fixed skeleton. Build it in this order:

1. A short opener to the Associate Editor that summarizes the major changes and confirms a full point-by-point document follows.

1. A Reviewer 1 / Reviewer 2 split that quotes each comment in full.

1. A response under each comment that names the manuscript revision by page and line, plus the SI figure or table where the new data live.

Upload the response letter and the revised manuscript through ACS Paragon Plus, and answer every comment from every reviewer. One named failure pattern dominates this stage, and it is testable against your own draft.

At ACS Catalysis the single most-cited rebuttal mistake is the unlocatable change. For every comment, your response must cite the exact page and line where the revision appears, plus the SI figure or table number where new data live. Write "page 9, lines 3-28; SI Figures S12-S15," not "we have updated the manuscript."

The reason this matters more here than at a wordier journal: a revised ACS Catalysis manuscript may return to the original reviewers, who are re-checking the precise mechanism data and controls they asked for. If they cannot find a change, they treat the comment as unaddressed, and an unaddressed control-experiment or mechanism comment is exactly what triggers another round or a rejection on revision.

Two habits keep the locations honest:

• Use the page and line numbers of the revised file, and refresh them after any reformatting so they never drift.
• Submit a marked-up version alongside the clean one, so a reviewer can confirm each edit at a glance.

On ACS Catalysis's data-heavy reviews, the Associate Editor has to confirm that every mechanism and control comment was answered, often across two reviewers. Make that scan effortless by keeping the reviewer's voice and yours typographically distinct.

A clean convention:

• Set reviewer comments in black italic, so they read as quoted.
• Set author responses in plain blue, with the word "Response:" in bold.
• Quote new manuscript text in an indented box, set apart from the reply.

A reader should never have to guess where the reviewer's voice ends and yours begins. When the two run together in one undifferentiated block, the editor cannot quickly verify coverage, and on a mechanism-first review that ambiguity works against you.

This is the honest-friction part. A major revision at ACS Catalysis is an invitation, not an acceptance, and a rebuttal that fights the wrong battle does not just delay the paper. It can end in a rejection on revision when the manuscript returns to the original reviewers. The majority of disputes are not worth contesting.

Comply, do not argue, when a reviewer asks for any of these: a control experiment, an in-situ or operando spectroscopic probe, broader substrate scope, a fairer benchmark, or turnover-frequency and stability data. These are exactly the mechanism and characterization checks ACS Catalysis reviewers are instructed to apply. Refusing them reads as the paper failing the journal's core bar.

Push back only when a request would reduce correctness or falls outside the journal's mechanism-and-characterization criteria, and even then, make a clarifying edit and propose an alternative rather than refusing flat.

When a reviewer's core objection is a mechanism or characterization failure you genuinely cannot fix within one round, two realistic moves beat arguing:

• Add the missing data first, then resubmit the round with the experiment actually in the manuscript.

• Use the ACS Manuscript Transfer Service to move the paper, its files, and any completed reviews to a better-fit ACS journal such as ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, ACS Energy Letters, or ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Appeals rarely overturn a desk or post-review rejection unless you can show a clear factual error in the assessment. Treat each revision round as scarce: spend it answering every comment in full with new catalysis data, not on winning an argument about significance that ACS Catalysis reviewers were never grading.

In our pre-submission review work with ACS Catalysis submissions and rebuttals, three patterns generate the most consistent extra revision rounds and rejections on revision. Each is testable against your own response before you upload the revision.

Mechanism defended by computation, not by direct evidence. The most common reason an ACS Catalysis revision stalls is that the response argues the proposed mechanism from a DFT energy profile while the reviewer asked for direct experimental support. The journal wants intermediate species characterized by multiple spectroscopic methods, so answering a mechanism comment with another calculation reads, in practice, as the paper still not teaching how the catalysis works.

Across our ACS Catalysis pre-submission reviews, the split is sharp:

• Rebuttals that add a direct spectroscopic probe for the intermediate clear re-review.
• Rebuttals that re-defend the original computational mechanism earn another round.

The fix is mechanical: add the experimental probe (in-situ or operando spectroscopy, isotope labeling, or kinetic isotope data), report it in a new figure and SI section, and cite it by page and line.

Control experiments left out of the revision. ACS Catalysis reviewers ask for control experiments that eliminate alternative explanations for the observed activity, which makes missing or thin controls the second failure pattern. The sharpest version we see is the manuscript that claims a catalytic effect but never runs a hot-filtration, poisoning, or blank control to exclude a background or leaching pathway, then defends the omission in prose ("the effect is clearly catalytic") instead of data.

In our ACS Catalysis pre-submission reviews, the rebuttals that fail here acknowledge the control request but never actually add the experiment to the results or the SI. The pattern that clears is concrete:

1. Run the requested control.
2. Report the negative-control outcome explicitly.
3. Place it in a new figure and point the reviewer to the exact location.

Characterization and benchmark gaps treated as optional. This pattern is specific to ACS Catalysis as a catalysis flagship. Authors defend an activity result without completing catalyst characterization or reporting turnover frequency under kinetically controlled conditions, and they keep a benchmark table that compares against an outdated reference catalyst. Because the guidelines ask that catalysts be characterized by turnover frequencies and fundamental kinetic parameters, an incomplete package or a self-flattering benchmark is a common cause of the "concerns not properly addressed" outcome.

In our ACS Catalysis pre-submission reviews, we flag a rebuttal when:

• Requested BET, XRD, or microscopy data is acknowledged but not added for every catalyst in the performance figure.
• A selectivity or stability claim is defended without the supporting run.
• The benchmark still excludes the current state of the art.

The fix is to complete the characterization for every catalyst, report turnover and stability data, revise the benchmark against the current best-in-class system under comparable conditions, and answer every comment from both reviewers with an action verb and a page and line reference.

These three patterns are why an ACS Catalysis rebuttal is not interchangeable with a Nature or JACS one. The mechanism-first, characterization-heavy, reviewer-returned structure rewards new catalysis data and verifiable evidence over argument, and it punishes selective or defensive responses with another round or a rejection on revision.

The rebuttal that survives re-review does five things: it adds direct mechanistic evidence, the missing control experiments, complete characterization, a fair benchmark, and full coverage of every reviewer. You can pressure-test a draft against all five with an ACS Catalysis reviewer-response check before you upload it.

• Every comment from every reviewer is answered with an action verb and a page and line reference to the revised manuscript and SI.
• Mechanism and control requests (direct spectroscopic evidence, isotope labeling, hot-filtration and poisoning controls, kinetic studies) are addressed with new data, not prose reassurance.
• Catalyst characterization is complete for every catalyst in the performance figure, with turnover frequency reported under kinetically controlled conditions and a stability test.
• The benchmark compares against the current best-in-class catalyst under comparable conditions, the tone is firm only on catalysis data, and all cited DOIs in the revised reference list are clean.